Patch 0.9.7.0 ( Thursday June 1st 2023 )
Hey everybody,
We are introducing a new patch today to improve game systems related to our future carrier update. Radial menus have received a polish pass, with a new design and description details, and should now properly reflect the state of each sub system or weapon (like cooldowns). Abilities have been reworked and integrated to the loadout/weapons MFD and can now be used with their group number keys instead of their own dedicated keys. This allowed us to clean some obsolete keybinds and introduce a few new ones for targetting primary or secondary mission objectives, or auto-targetting sub-systems on the target (this should massively improve the value of interceptors vs capital ships).
We've also been experimenting with voice-overs for incoming transmissions and computer alerts. They are currently disabled by default, so if you want to give them a try, make sure to turn the options on in the audio settings. Some of the abilities have been tweaked or reworked to make use of the new ability system.
Coming next, we'll probably release another intermediary patch by the end of June with tweaks and improvements (mostly ability-related) before the main carrier update (likely in July). After that we'll pretty much be done with core gameplay and move on to the rewards system (medals, achievements, skins, cross-server persistency etc..).
We aren't sure yet how the single player mission editor, tutorials or modding will fit in terms of development priorities, but they'll probably keep us busy at least until the end of the year. After that we'll have to do a final polish/optimizations pass and we should be good to go for the release. It's been long coming (better late than never) but it seems like we're finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. We appreciate your patience and support in that adventure.
-Flavien Brebion
Radial menus / Controls
- New visual design
- Info details displayed at center of the wheel
- State are better displayed, including cooldown/requirements notifications, associated hotkey etc..
- Radial menus can now be opened/closed by tapping a key and clicking on one of many items (holding and selecting an item is still possible though)
- When hovering over a weapon group on the weapons radial menu, the corresponding group is now highlighted in the loadout/weapons MFD
- Added a new targetting radial menu (accessible through holding T, G or H keys). Mostly convenience for people that do not want to learn all hotkeys (or on gamepads with limited buttons)
- Added a new targetting keybind: auto-target best sub-system/hardpoint on target (will automatically choose a hardpoint to destroy, and switch to the next one upon destroyed). Default hotkey: Y
- Added a new targetting event: target closest primary objective. Default hotkey: U
- Added a new targetting event: target closest secondary objective. Default hotkey: I
- Removed hotkeys from unused targetting modes: cycle through previous/next targets (default hotkeys on Y and U, now been replaced by the new targetting events)
- Removed hotkey to deploy a mine (default: M)
- Added a dedicated overcharge radial menu (default: holding B)
- Added a dedicated formations radial menu (default: holding N)
Abilities / Upgrades
- Abilities are now bound to weapon groups and will be accessible through the 1-9 keys like weapons. Their state is also displayed in the loadout/weapons MFD as well as the weapons radial menu (default: RMB)
- Ship/loadout menu now displays the ability type in the preview card (if any)
- Removed targetting assist upgrade (Note: you can still toggle the assist option in the gameplay settings)
- Fixed repairing hardpoints on an ally using a repair-field, not providing repair notifications or rewards
- Revamped Stealth upgrade to be a toggle (now depleting energy over time)
- Fixed being able to engage Stealth while in warp
- Stealth no longer gets disengaged while turbo boosting
- Warp jam no longer affects allies in standard (Note: removed Warp Jammer II upgrade as that's what it provided)
- Warp jam now costs 150 energy points for every use
- Introduced a new warp jam boost upgrade that increases the jam duration (at the cost of a small range reduction)
- Introduced a new energy regen rate upgrade that increases the regen rate at the cost of max energy (Note: not available on bombers and cruisers, and incompabile with the capacitors upgrades)
- Improved reliability (mobility + slight hitpoints buff) of proximity mines (this should make them more of a threat)
- Improved AI usage of mines (they will no longer waste mines at large distances, or if the enemy isn't a cap ship, and increase the mines drop frequency when fighting against a nearby capital ship target)
- Increased mines launch speed, so that they get away from the source ship more quickly before they're fully activated
- Unactivated mines without a target no longer get shot at by turrets
Voice-overs (experimental)
- Added a male and female officer voice over for HQ transmissions (Note: some of the female transmissions are not complete yet, so it is possible that not all transmissions will have a proper voice over)
- Added a synthetic female computer voice for alerts and warnings
- Both of those options are turned off by default. We need to evaluate if they're too spammy and cause audio fatigue before we promote them to be the standard. Feedback here is appreciated
- If you want to give them a try, turn the settings on in the audio menu
- Renormalized audio volume (Note: this will reset the volume settings other than general volume)
General Balance changes
- Hardpoints now have a min repair time of 3 minutes
HUD / Menus
- Added an option in controls settings to toggle the keyboard helper screen on first deploy
- Fix for extended MFD title name
- Empty MFD pages no longer show their title on the HUD (exemple: an empty squad will no longer show "squad" floating on top of the MFD on the HUD)
- Fixed formatting of text in loadout/weapons MFD (not properly aligned to bottom MFDs, and could not fit 10 groups before)
- Removed beeping sound when lock is sub-optimal
- Locking HUD's circle now gets bigger as target is aligned and differencial velocity is minimized (note: the logic also got swapped, previously the circle was getting bigger when the aim was inaccurate)
- Fixed guided weapons (missiles/torps/mines) indicators not properly highlighted on HUD when they're targetting the player (their color/brightness should've been increased)
- Improved reactivity of "incoming" missile alert: there was up to 1/4th of a second of network delay for the alert to trigger after a guided weapon got activated/detected. There is no delay anymore
- New notification added to depleting ammo on a weapon (+chaffs, mines etc..)
- Tweaks to alerts/warnings priorities
- Volume levels are now locked behind a "customize" checkbox in the audio settings (the goal here is to have players avoid touching them by accident unless they really want to)
- Tweaks to HUD color themes
- Updated help screen (F9)
Bug fixes
- Fixed crash bug when loading old/obsolete input profile XML files (Note: this could have affected old returning players)
- Fixed a bug that caused the locking HUD to disappear while the ship is being repaired/resupplied by an ally
- Fixed guided weapons triggering "incoming" beeping alert despite not being detected by the player target (note: the alert text did not show up, but the alert beeping sound did, which wasn't coherent)
- Fixed incorrect welcome transmission being sent when selecting Scoria instead of Havok upon first joining a match